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A supercharged Plymouth Duster nicknamed ‘the Ghost’ goes wheel-to-wheel through an entire quarter mile at NEAD’s No Prep Throwdown in Oskaloosa, Iowa, landing a spot in the Small Tire class finals against serious competition. The close finish — and the loyal Mopar crowd cheering it on — turned a regional grassroots race into a clip that’s still inspiring viewers to start their own builds years later. Watch the full pass.
Pontiac built just 697 Firebird Trans Ams for 1969, including only eight convertibles, and the nameplate nearly disappeared before it had a chance to catch on. Two Ram Air engines were offered, but the Ram Air IV went into only 55 cars, all of them coupes. Here is what separated those cars from the rest, and why a legendary third engine never actually reached a customer.
Before the Boss 302 or the Mach 1, the biggest engine a Mustang buyer could order was the S-code 390. Rated at roughly 320 horsepower and 427 lb-ft of torque, it turned the 1967 fastback into the serious performance choice a full year before the 428 Cobra Jet arrived. It also wore the exact silhouette that Steve McQueen would make famous. Here is what the GT 390 package actually included.
Plymouth’s second-generation Barracuda gets overshadowed by the E-body cars that followed, but the 1967 Formula S hid something genuinely rare under its Coke-bottle bodywork: a 383-cubic-inch big block squeezed into a compact engine bay. The fit was so tight that power steering was not available at all. Fewer than two thousand buyers took the option, and the compromises tell you exactly how hard it was.
Jay Leno owns hundreds of cars, but few tell a story as understated as his 1966 Dodge Coronet, a boxy family coupe hiding one of the most feared engines Detroit ever sold to the public. That small “426 Hemi” fender badge marks the first model year Chrysler offered the Hemi as a genuine street engine rather than a race-only exotic, sold in just three B-body nameplates. Read on to find out why a car this plain-looking still commands serious respect from collectors like Leno.
This Competition Yellow 1955 Chevrolet 210 keeps almost nothing it was born with. The original frame, suspension, and inline-six are gone, replaced by a full Art Morrison chassis and a Corvette-derived LS6 aluminum V8. Somehow it still reads unmistakably as a Tri-Five the instant you see it. Read on for what actually changes underneath a build like this, and why the Tri-Five became the default canvas for American restomodding.
A bright red 1971 Dodge Challenger is easy to admire and surprisingly hard to read, because 1971 was the year Dodge quietly began dismantling the option sheet that made the car famous. It was the final season for the 426 Hemi, the final season for the R/T badge, and the final season for the convertible. Fewer than a hundred buyers took the biggest engine on offer. Read on for what made this the Challenger’s last complete year.
Chevrolet built the ultimate track-ready C7 Corvette, then deliberately left out the supercharger everyone assumed was the whole point. The 2017 Grand Sport got the Z06’s wide body, brakes, and chassis hardware paired with the Stingray’s naturally aspirated LT1. It sounds like a compromise on paper and turned out to be nothing of the sort. Read on to find out why so many buyers picked it over the more powerful car.
Ron Rufo wasn’t shopping for a car when he pulled into a Tinley Park show and happened to park beside a white 1959 Pontiac Bonneville convertible. It won Best of Show that afternoon, he struck up a friendship with the owner, and in 2001 the car became his. It’s also the model year Pontiac widened its track five inches and built an entire brand identity around it. Read on to find out what Wide-Track really changed.
The Original Super Chevy Show’s stop in Martin, Michigan runs on a track with real history: US131 Motorsports Park started life as Martin Dragway back in 1962, long before a million renovation turned it into today’s national-touring-ready facility. The event’s entry rule is just as distinctive, any car can compete, even a Mustang, as long as it’s GM-powered. Here’s what made this particular weekend more than just another drag meet.
Gar Robinson beat former Indy Lights champion Rafa Matos in a two-lap shootout to win the Trans Am Muscle Car Challenge TA2 race at Belle Isle in Detroit. The victory closed out a chase his father George had started at the same event back in 1988. Camaros, a Mustang, and a Challenger filled the top four spots, which is exactly the kind of finish TA2 was built to produce.
For two model years America built a pair of homegrown supercars that could embarrass European exotics, and enthusiasts have never agreed on which one did it better. The 2015 Corvette Z06 brought 650 supercharged horsepower and a chassis GM had spent a decade sharpening. The 2016 Viper ACR answered with a naturally aspirated V10 and the most extreme aero package Dodge ever built. Read on to see where each one actually wins.
Nelson Bandy spent years trying to buy a 1968 Shelby GT500KR convertible from a young married couple in a small Tennessee town, and every time he asked, the answer was no. Then the car disappeared in 1978 and stayed gone for nearly four decades. Its reappearance closed a chapter that started with a chance sighting on a main street. Read on to find out what makes a KR convertible worth a forty-year wait.
The 1971 Chevrolet Camaro is the model year enthusiasts skip on their way back to 1969, and the horsepower figures are the reason why. But the Z28’s LT-1 didn’t lose nearly as much as the window sticker suggested, because a compression cut and a brand-new way of measuring power landed on the same order sheet in the same twelve months. With only 4,862 Z28s built, it may also be the most overlooked second-generation Camaro there is. Read on to find out what actually changed.
Chevy sold over 220,000 Camaros in its debut 1967 season, but only 602 of them wore the Z/28 option code — Vince Piggins’ quietly-introduced, race-ready package that turned an ordinary pony car into one of GM’s rarest muscle machines. Add in a 396-powered Indy 500 pace car pedigree from that same first year, and the ’67 Camaro didn’t just answer the Mustang, it arrived swinging. A six-cylinder base car and a numbers-matching Z/28 both wear the same badge — but only one of them is a genuine unicorn.